XDA Exclusive Phone Review – HTC Titan (The New One)

If you are a follower of our little Portal, you may be aware of a few things. The first is that we don’t talk much about Windows Phone, although we don’t completely alienate it; and the second one is that we hardly ever review a device. We have seen a couple of these hardware reviews by some of the guys from xda-TV, and they were very good, so I figured I would do one myself as well, particularly considering what I have sitting on my desk as of last Friday.

You may recall, shenshang as well as Ben_duder getting a bit of hands-on time with HTC’s latest Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) during the unveiling event in London about a month ago. Well, I just got one courtesy of HTC and figured that I would use this time to share my experiences with it so far.

Unlike its predecessor, this incarnation of the Titan actually does deserve the name that it was given and fits it much better than its code name (Eternity). This is one of the only two or three lucky ones which ship with Mango preloaded from factory. And according to early adopters of Mango, it is well worth it. My humble opinion so far (as a hardcore Android user)… very nice work!

The screen is a large 4.7 in Super LCD with WVGA resolution at 800×480. If you think that having something this big would potentially make your ability to carry it a troublesome experience, it isn’t nearly as bad as you’d think. It will put any and all 4.3 inch screened devices that you currently own to shame. As for the body, as you’d expect it is a unibody construction with the back being made of aluminum to give it that much needed smoothness and toughness. The one thing that is great about this is that unlike several devices where you pretty much have to pry the device open to get the battery out (HTC EVO anyone?), this one has a quick release button on the bottom for quick access to the back of the device. My nails will forever thank you for this idea, HTC. Last but not least are the physical dimensions of this device, this does have considerable length and width due to the size of the screen. However, it more than makes up for it by being just 9.9 mm thin and weighting only 160 grams.

Raw power is one thing that this device is not missing. Unlike any of its brethren, the Titan comes loaded with a 1.5 GHz single core processor (unlike the standard 1 GHz one), which makes it the fastest WP device commercially available. It also comes loaded with 512 MB of RAM, which means that you have more than enough oomph to run anything on it. The proof is in the pudding though. The responsiveness and smoothness of this device cannot be compared to anything that I have seen so far (that carries a Microsoft brand, that is), and Sense runs beautifully well in here as well.

The other interesting feature that this device carries, which we hope will find its way onto other devices as well, is the lens being used for the camera. The device carries a wide angle lens that will allow you to take great pictures, even with somewhat bad lighting conditions. This is also aided by the dual LED flash that this device carries. The 8 MP resolution does not hurt either to get good shots. Here is a sample of a picture that I took during night time with low light

Lastly, the one thing that is worth mentioning as well is that battery life is rather decent for a phone this size, considering that the screen will likely eat up most of the power. I have not yet taken the device to the extreme, but after having Wifi on for 2 full days and using the device for mild music and internet surfing, I was still left with approximately 70% battery.

The verdict that I give is that this phone is an absolute must if you are tinkering with the idea of going into Windows Phone. The only drawback that I can see is that you still need to use Zune for mostly everything, but then again, this is not the manufacturer’s fault. I am finishing this one off with a few more shots of the device. I hope you enjoyed it and as I said, if you are considering investing on a WP7 device, this is the one.

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